Best way to butcher a White-tail Deer. To get less hair in your meat.

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Lenore

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This trick only works if you are butchering the deer hanging.

  1. Start skining the deer from where the knees would be on the back legs and when you get to the hips cut the tail off and skin it down. Also make sure to tie off the pooper and urethra.
  2. Then proceed to skin the rest of the deer until you get the neck and the elbows on the front legs.
  3. Then cut the head off and the rest of the front legs from the elbows.
  4. Then before you gut the deer, take a couple pails of water and dump it all over the deer. Then with clean hands wipe the deer down trying to get as much a the hair off as possible.
  5. Then gut the deer.
  6. Last you pour a couple more pails of water on it and wipe off the deer and the inside of the empty ribcage.

This is defiantly is a game changer saves so much time butchering.
Thank you.
 
I usually take a deer during our early muzzleloader season. It can still be quite warm at that time so priority is to get it gutted and cooled. I don't think the above method would work the best for me.
 
my first deer was butchered in my carport years ago. My meat cutter friend who was the manager of the meat dept for a local grocery store came over and did it right there. He washed the deer down with a mild water/vineger solution to remove hair and anything else. He told me back then not to expose the meat to plain water.
He was constantly cleaning his hands and tools in a bucket of iced vinegar water as well.
I wash the carcass out after gutting but I don't usually get my animals hairy or dirty enough to warrant a wash down.
Skinning with the deer hanging head down is pretty standard practice
 
I normally gut my deer in the field to cool the meat as quickly as possible. Hair isn't a problem with me as I butcher the deer myself and once done it's nice cuts of meat with no hair. Everyone has their way of doing it.
 
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Nearly zero hair is easy without using water and gutting immediately after finding the animal is always first for me regardless of temperature. It’s the best way possible to start cooling the animal as all those guts are a huge heat sink. Using a Butt Out tool makes it easier.

Cut off tail and legs at the knees.

Cut in the same direction the hair goes from throat to butthole.

Pull all guts in one swift motion.

Very clean body cavity and no hair.



Of course choosing your shots wisely really helps with the whole dressing and butchering process…
 
I usually skin my deer on the ground, sometimes hanging; immediately after field photographs. I'm not to concerned if hair gets on the carcass, main objective is to cool the body as quickly as I can. Hair can be removed by using a hunting knife or damp paper towels.
 
We hang the deer using a gambrel hook and block and tackle or the tractor bucket. Off the ground, easy to work on, easy to keep clean.
 
IdQBOBY.jpg
 
90% of the time I bone out whatever happens to be laying on the ground because where I hunt I have to pack frame or calf sled the meat out.

I carry a space blanket in my pack and lay it out on the ground to put the bits on as I slice them up, when done in game bags they go.
Very little hair or debris gets on the meat this way and when I get home the majority of the butchering process is already done.
 
I have no water supply in my shop where I hang & bone my kills. I never gut, just hang & bone within minutes of the kill, no "leave it hang for a week" here. A kill floor foreman for one of the largest hog plants in Canada showed me how to get rid of hair the easy way...30 seconds with one of those hand held propane torches turns every hair into a carbon powder that you cant even see after the job.
 
Ya this year I will be endeavoring to bone out my deer rather than drag them off the mountain gutted.
I am not really educated on the regs for boned out meat here in BC so I need to read up on that. Just getting to be too much work dragging them out of that spot. That gutless method is interesting too, I may have to give that a try maybe
 
I handle deer, moose, elk, gutless/boneless style, slice them down the back from neck to tail, and deal with a hind tagging leg/tail/evidence of secx first. Peel the hide around that hind leg first leaving a hunk attached to the meat with evidence of secx & for deer the snipped off tail.

Working on that leg is where the hair can get flying around. I cut that whole leg off as you normally would & remove the bone once it's off.
Then I peel down the remaining hide & slice away.

Good video about gutless deboning:
 
I gut in the field and skin once at home, I’m fairly clean while skinning so not much hair left to wipe off with a damp cloth. If I need to wash anything I use a water/vinegar solution and a cloth. Have been skinning on a table the last few years vs hanging, find it easier for my situation but both ways work well.
 
First the disclaimer that what I will relate is not what I usually do. My brother in law’s family almost always hunted close to home or on relatives farms where getting a whole deer back to where it could be hung quickly wasn’t hard to arrange. They didn’t do a belly cut at all; just opened the hind legs enough to expose the tendons enough to get it dangling and skinned them cased like a muskrat, mink or just about any fur-bearer you could name with the obvious exception of bears and beavers. Since the hide was completely inside out the whole time there wasn’t a chance of hair transferriing except for the initial openning The head was severed normally then the whole thing with head was set aside to take to a taxidermist without a single splittlng cut on it, where they would get a credit for the unmarred cape toward there own work whenever they had something worth mounting. Pretty hard for the ‘dermist to whine about cuts being done improperly when there weren’t any to begin with.

Myself; I don’t worry about a few hairs that are easily picked off later, but the thought of that would drive them nuts.
 
Here's what I do, you do what you want.
Gut and skin immediately or ASAP - for me it is usually withing 30 min
Quick skinning means I can usually pull the hide of with my hands after gutting - so no more cutting the hide
wash it out with the hose. Hang to dry
Butcher in a couple days. Nice clean mild venison
Don't believe that bacteria BS.
If the water is clean enough to drink, its clean enough to wash the meat
 
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One of the keys for me was learning to slide my knife under the hide, and then pop the hide with my knife.

My experience has been that hair is not really a problem, unless you cut it - then it goes everywhere. It also makes the knife duller.

I've never tried the skinning technique in this video, but John Griffiths is clearly someone who has given deer processing a lot of thought.

 
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